Garbage and COVID-19: Fear of superficial transmission of the virus has increased waste caused by the pandemic

In all Brazil, recycling plants have been closed for months. At Uganda, a dump lacks reusable plastics. And in the capital of Indonesia, disposable gloves and face shields pile up at the mouth of a river.

The increasing consumption of plastics and packaging during the pandemic has produced mountains of waste. But because COVID-19 fears have led to work stoppages at recycling facilities, instead some of the reusable material was thrown away or burned.

The same time, large volumes of personal protective equipment have been wrongly classified as dangerous, say solid waste experts. This material often nor allowed in the normal bin, so a lot it is dumped in hot pits or as garbage.

Experts warn that A problem in both cases is that an early fear that the coronavirus could easily spread through surfaces created a stigma that was difficult to eliminate around perfectly safe handling of trash. Since then, many scientists and government agencies have discovered that the fear of superficial transmission was exaggerated. But old habits die hard, especially in countries where waste disposal guidelines have not been updated and authorities are still concerned about tackling new epidemics.

“Because there is no transmission route through recycling, say, we always find cbears that burn instead of recycling because people are afraid surface transmission», He declared during a dialogue with The New York Times, Anne Woolridge, which leads a working group on healthcare waste for the International Solid Waste Association. “You are trying to educate the entire world population in less than a year. It’s impossible.”

Regarding personal protective equipment, the specialist indicated that “The situation of gloves and masks scattered around the world would have been unthinkable before the pandemic. Corn because everyone is saying that anything that has to do with the pandemic is medical waste, it puts pressure on the system. “

Recycling stops

Recycling rates have dropped dramatically around the world in the past year, in part because demand from manufacturers has fallen. In many countries where the recycling industry is still driven by manual sorting, instead of machines, in-person work has been suspended due to virus fears.

At Brazil, for example, the generation of recyclable materials in cities has increased by 25% in 2020, mainly due to an increase in online shopping, according to Abrelpe, a national association of sanitation companies. Corn recycling programs in various cities have suspended their operations for several months anyway, citing fears of shallow transmission.

This had clear human and environmental costs. A recent study found that during the suspension period, at least 16,000 tonnes of recyclable material less than usual were in circulation, that represents an economic loss of approximately $ 1.2 million per month for waste picker associations. Another study found that a month off was a missed opportunity to save the amount of electricity used by more than 152,000 households.

“Suspension highlighted the weaknesses of our system ”, Explain Liane Nakada, co-author of the second article and researcher at the University of Campinas. She and her husband kept their recycling materials at home for months to avoid improper disposal, but they were the exception.

A global divide

“Recycling rates are now returning to pre-COVID-19 levels in developed economies,” he said. James D. Michelsen, expert in solid waste from the International Finance Corporation. However, in countries where recycling is conducted by informal collectors, closures and epidemics always create major disruptions.

Before a recent coronavirus outbreak hits Kampala, in Uganda, hundreds of people gathered to collect plastics at a municipal landfill. They then sold the plastics to middlemen, who then resold them to recycling companies. But when the country closed this summer, movement restrictions prevented trucks from picking up trash in some neighborhoods. Also there were fears of superficial transmission: authorities said the virus was on the rise because people had not washed their hands.

“From this month, only about a third of the usual number of waste pickers were at the Kampala city landfill ”, noted Luc Mugerwa, representative of a group of local collectors. Some manufacturers who came in search of reclaimed plastics were unlucky. “Every day they are always looking for plastics to buy. The demand is there, but the supply is very low, ”he stressed.

Proliferation of PPE

Another challenge is the used personal protective equipment (PPE) that has flooded the world since the early days of the pandemic. About eight million tonnes of plastics already enter the ocean each year, and experts fear that the use of PPE and other waste will make matters worse.

“Most PPE is not dangerous, but many countries still classify it as such,” he said. Michelsen. It means that used gloves and masks are often lumped together with truly hazardous medical waste and treated at great expense, a waste of money, or disposed of by other means.

The United Nations Environment Program estimated last year that Health facilities around the world have produced around 7.5 pounds of medical waste linked to COVID-19 per person per day in the world. In Jakarta, Indonesia and four other Asian mega-cities, the overall rate of medical waste disposal has increased by around 500%, they said.

Some of this waste inevitably turns into garbage. In the capital of Indonesia, the pre-pandemic pollution studies of the mouth of a local river carried out by the Oceanographic research center They didn’t throw away a lot of personal protective equipment.

“Even in Jakarta, which has the country’s largest budget for environmental management, waste always escapes into the environment ”, noted Mohammed Reza Cordoba, a scientist involved in river studies. “What about other areas with smaller budgets? “

Syringe hunt

An emerging concern is that, the avalanche of material creating new pressures on local communities, syringes and other really dangerous medical waste can end up in the wrong place.

“In the poorest countries of the world, this would represent a health risk for waste collectors. Tens of thousands of people are already searching the landfills of Bangladesh, for example. Corn only three or four of the country’s 64 districts have facilities for the safe disposal of used syringes ”, manifested Mostafizur Rahman, a solid waste expert in the capital, Dhaka.

“These discharges they are not safe or hygienic, For what it is really worrying in terms of environmental protection and health ”, added Rahman, professor of environmental sciences at the Jahangirnagar University.

AND Because vaccine syringes and vials are a valuable commodity on the black market, criminal gangs are encouraged to steal vaccination kits and resell them illegally through the health care system.

At the end of last year Interpol warned that the pandemic had already “triggered unprecedented opportunistic and predatory criminal behavior” around the theft, counterfeiting and illegal advertising of COVID-19 and influenza vaccines. The warning came before most of the world’s population received an injection against the virus.

“It’s a real problem in the market. These vials have tremendous value on the black market because you can fill them with whatever you want and sell them, ”he concluded. Michelsen.

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